Add Frozen to the list of movies that make me cry like a baby

My dog was confused as to why I kept trying to get him to come sit by me. He doesn't usually see me cry like this. Actually, I don't think he's ever seen me cry like this. He just snorted and went off to eat cat turds or chew on a bone or something.

But my cat Pumpkin has seen it before.

And so has my husband. But he was working so Pumpkin curled up on my shoulders and is still purring loudly. Her sweet sweet purrs that even a deaf person can hear.

Anyway. I figured I might cry a little during Frozen, kinda like how I cried just a tiny bit during Brave, at the end, when the mother hugged her daughter. It was a happy sad, although I felt a twinge of, "I wish my mom would wake up."

Turns out I cried like it was Tangled. That is--constantly and during nearly the entire movie.

Why?

I miss my siblings so much. Damn my dad's frozen narcissistic heart. And damn my mother for being spineless against him when he disowned me. And damn them both for keeping me from my four littlest siblings.

The tears began when Elsa accidentally hurt Anna with a icy blow to the head. That feeling of fear and guilt and despair. They flowed afresh when Elsa shut Anna out, and I could tell they missed each other so much--Elsa because she didn't want to hurt Anna again (that's totally PTSD), and Anna because she didn't know why.

Do my siblings know why? Do they understand why I can't talk with them? Or do they think it's my fault--like Anna thought it was Elsa's fault for the closed doors, even though their parents were the ones who originally decided it would be so? Even though our parents decided it would be so?

Heaven knows I tried sending them letters and birthday and Christmas gifts, to keep that connection alive, to let them know I love and care for them. But our parents told me to stop, and I was (for better or for worse, and probably irrationally so) afraid of getting a restraining order. So I did.

Meanwhile, I memorialized them. Not a death memorial--but a memory memorial like in Tangled. Instead of paper lanterns, I changed my Facebook photo to one of them on their birthdays.

After a while, though, I stopped. Why? I wanted to remember their dynamic changing selves. I knew they were growing up, and that always comes with change and development. I didn't want to remember them as when I last saw them in 2009. I wanted to remember them as themselves. I wanted to give them what my father couldn't--I wanted to give them the opportunity to be themselves instead of being what my father thinks they are.

I still remember them. I think about them every single day. Seriously. Some days more so than others, but yes, every single day.

With Tangled, I cried because the fake mother was so much like my dad--she didn't see Rapunzel for herself. She saw Rapunzel as an extension of her. And the fake mother only wanted Rapunzel back because she was hers. My parents only wanted me back because they wanted to control me. And when they couldn't, they cut me off.

I cried because I wanted real parents, like Rapunzel was eventually able to find. I cried because I felt the pain of losing a child and not knowing what happened, because I feel like I was kind of a second mother to my four littlest siblings. I helped raise them. And I lost them. Not to death, but to uncertainty. To the emotional entanglement and abuse by our parents.

And with Frozen, I cried because they were separated, and then because they were reunited. I cried because I would sacrifice myself for my siblings like that. I cried because of love.

As I continue through this pregnancy, I keep finding myself thinking about them. How they'd love to be aunts and uncles. And as odd as it may seem, part of me keeps thinking that this child is almost like a "replacement" for them, even though replacement is not the right word.

You see, I have a feeling my therapist thinks that this child will be healing in a way--giving me a chance to love and raise someone else, the same way I raised and loved my siblings. And I think that's true. Though I keep clarifying in my head, as if I'm trying to justify to other people that this child is not a replacement for my siblings.

Major life events make the pain of loss so much more acute.

At least Frozen gave me a much needed avenue to cry, to let it out. I could feel the sadness building up inside me, and I needed a way to let it go.

So I cried during nearly the whole movie, blubbering while trying to persuade my dog to come sit by me, crying while remembering all of the times I cried over my siblings with Pumpkin near me, purring.